Health Through Will Power

[Transcriber's Notes] Page numbers in this book are indicated by numbers enclosed in curly braces, e.g. {99}. They have been located where page breaks occurred in the original book.

This book is derived from a copy on the Internet Archive: http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924012175505

Obvious spelling or typographical errors have been corrected. Inconsistent spelling of names and inventive and alternative spelling is left as printed.

Extended quotations and citations are indented such as reports, letters and interviews. [End Transcriber's Notes]

HEALTH THROUGH WILL POWER

BY

JAMES J. WALSH, M.D., Ph.D., Sc.D., Etc.

MEDICAL DIRECTOR OF FORDHAM UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF SOCIOLOGY; PROFESSOR OF PHYSIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY AT CATHEDRAL COLLEGE; LECTURER ON PSYCHOLOGY, MARYWOOD COLLEGE, ETC.

BOSTON

LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY

1919

Copyright, 1919,

By Little, Brown, and Company.

All rights reserve

Published, November, 1919

Norwood Press

Set up and electrotyped by J. S. Cushing Co.,

Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.

To J. H. W.

EX ANIMO ET CORDE

J. J. W.

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PREFACE

A French surgeon to whom the remark was made in the third year of the War that France was losing an immense number of men replied: "Yes, we are losing enormously, but for every man that we lose we are making two men." What he meant, of course, was that the War was bringing out the latent powers of men to such an extent that every one of those who were left now counted for two. The expression is much more than a mere figure of speech. It is quite literally true that a man who has had the profound experience of a war like this becomes capable of doing ever so much more than he could before. He has discovered his own power. He has tapped layers of energy that he did not know he possessed. Above all, he has learned that his will is capable of enabling him to do things that he would have hesitated about and probably thought quite impossible before this revelation of himself to himself had been made.

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In a word, the War has proved a revival of appreciation of the place of the human will in life. Marshal Foch, the greatest character of the War, did not hesitate even to declare that "A battle is the struggle of two wills. It is never lost until defeat is accepted. They only are vanquished who confess themselves to be."

Our generation has been intent on the development of the intellect. We have been neglecting the will. "Shell shock" experiences have shown us that the intellect is largely the source of unfavorable suggestion. The will is the controlling factor in the disease. Many another demonstration of the power of will has been furnished by the War. This volume is meant to help in the restoration of the will to its place as the supreme faculty in life, above all the one on whose exercise, more than any other single factor, depends health and recovery from disease. The time seems opportune for its appearance and it is commended to the attention of those who have recognized how much the modern cult of intellect left man unprepared for the ruder trails of life yet could not see clearly what the remedy might be.

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CONTENTS

PAGE

Preface vii

CHAPTER

I The Will in Life 1

II Dreads 19

III Habits 42

IV Sympathy 57

V Self-Pity 69

VI Avoidance of Conscious Use of the Will 80

VII What the Will Can Do 102

VIII Pain and the Will 112

IX The Will and Air and Exercise 133

X The Will to Eat 148

XI The Place of the Will in Tuberculosis 167

XII The Will in Pneumonia 187